It's a Festivus Miracle!

I would like to be the first to offer my congratulations to George Costanza on his new promotion. In case you didn't hear, on Tuesday the New York Yankees fired traveling secretary David Szen. My sources tell me that Costanza, assistant to the traveling secretary, will assume the role immediately.

Pick 'em If You Got 'em

I'm in an NFL Pick 'Em league with about 25 other people and finally won this week for the first time since late in the 2005 season. Funny thing is, I think I've beaten Bill Simmons each week. When's he gonna give up and just let his wife ghostwrite his Friday column?

What's My Q?

Not a terrible Monday Night Football game this week. It helps if you mute your television and have a copy of the newest Maxim on hand. I guess MNF has gotten to the point where if the score isn't 37-0 early in the third quarter, it's a good game.

Once the Vikings went up 20-13 late in the fourth, you knew fourth-string QB Dave Grohl had no chance of engineering a 90-yard, game-tying drive in 2½ minutes, but to heave a bomb from midfield into double coverage in the end zone on 2nd down? Not the best idea in a must-win game. Wait, that was Kyle Orton at quarterback? Are you sure? Where were the Foo Fighters Monday night? I need this double-checked.

And by the way, this is my third post to this blog, the Must-Win Blog, and I just want to clarify something. This really was a must-win game for the Bears. My definition of a must-win game is where a team must win or their season and/or hopes to make the playoffs officially end. The Bears are officially out of the playoffs. Mike and the Mad Dog's definition of a must-win game is an 0-1 team going into Week 2 needing a W after a tough loss in Week 1. Big difference. I think the Chargers lost 4 "must-win games" this season before clinching their division.

I realize there's a pressure to make every single game seem important, but they're really not. Chances are if you tune into a game and expect it to be great, you'll be disappointed a few hours later. Most games aren't great. That's why we have ESPN Classic. Or that's why we used to have ESPN Classic. I think now it's for American Gladiators and Arli$$ reruns and rodeo and soccer matches that don't get ratings on ESPN2.

But anyway, that's the reason for the name.

Back to the MNF game for a second. I don't care what anyone has said about Tarvaris Jackson in the past month or two; he's terrible. He's Anthony Wright with a cooler first name and an equally common last name. Three interceptions, no touchdowns and a fumble lost. He's awful.

They say that the goaltender in hockey is the single most important player on any team sport. I'm not much of a hockey fan these days but after seeing Rex Grossman in the Super Bowl last season, Eli Manning and the Giants at 9-5 and Jackson and the Vikings at 8-6 this season and Trent Dilfer with a Super Bowl ring that wasn't pawned off by Alonzo Thomas or Joe Gilliam, I would have to agree. I would rather have Martin Brodeur than Manning behind center for the G-Men this Sunday in Buffalo. Elisp can man the crease for the Devils in Calgary.

I've taken it easy on Eli since he came into the league, partly because I'm a Giants fan and partly because we've made the playoffs the last two years and control our own destiny this year, but he's getting tougher and tougher to stick up for each week. He needs to step up this weekend in Buffalo. At least throw a spiral. Can you imagine the poor kids who pay money to go to the Manning Passing Academy and end up with Eli as an instructor? Half of the kids leave the academy 100% better, half of 'em leave off their back foot.

During the game on Sunday, the Redskins' defense started to act like that stupid dog in Duck Hunt. Each time a Giants receiver dropped one of Eli's ducks, they just stood up from behind the bushes, laughing.

In other NFL news, the Cowboys' Roy Williams was suspended for one week without pay for his third horse-collar tackle of the season. To recap, Williams was suspended for a game for a type of tackle that wasn't illegal a few years ago until he broke the leg of someone who then ended up being on his team. T.O. ends up on the short end of both sticks. Works for me.

Rocket Fuel

What a great week.

We finally have an answer to the questions of "why did Roger Clemens bean Mike Piazza in the head with a fastball?" and "why did Roger Clemens throw the barrel of a bat at Mike Piazza?" and "why did Roger Clemens keep getting better and better as he got older and older, just like Barry did?"

The nectar of the baseball gods. The juice. Now both the best hitter and the best pitcher of this era are probably not going to the Hall of Fame. There will be no debate about whether Bonds will wear a Pirates cap or a significantly larger Giants cap. The dunce cap fits just fine. Nobody will get to guess whether Clemens goes in as a Red Sock, a Blue Jay, a Yankee or an Astro. Now he's just something that sounds a little like Astro.

No prominent Mets were named, at least not those prominent after the '80s — sorry Lenny — and there were 20 players with ties to the Yankees. It's a beautiful thing, if not just to be able to bust chops. The Mets' 2 rings don't really hold up in an argument across town.

"You are watching YES, the home of cheaters."

Copyright that one Hank. Come to think of it, maybe we should look into Bob Sheppard too. Fifty years as public address announcer for the Giants? Fifty-six years and counting for the Yankees? What kind of PA announcer hits his prime in his 90s? Check his locker.

Yes, the Mitchell Report was the big news for the past few days. Big deal. The only players who you didn't expect to see on the list were the players who obviously did not benefit from using performance-enhancing drugs. Paxton Crawford comes to mind. And quickly leaves it again. By the way, isn't the phrase "performance-enhancing drugs" the "weapons of mass destruction" of the sports world? PEDs from now on.

My favorite part of this whole debacle is that Senator Mitchell has the gall to tell the public to focus on the report, not the names within it. Really Senator? Don't focus on the names? So I guess you assume that news and sports channels carried your press conference live, every newspaper had front-page coverage and countless Internet sites had links to both the press conference and to the report itself for the sole purpose of us finding out whether or not baseball has a steroid problem?

Without the names you are basically saying that it took 20 months of research for you and your expert team to figure out that baseball players take steroids and HGH and should stop it. We all knew that. The names are the only thing we cared about and frankly, they weren't that surprising.

"Drugs are bad, m'kay?" Twenty months and that's what you got? Thanks Senator Mackey. When does spring training start?

This is a Must Win Blog

The Florida Marlins traded Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Detroit Tigers Tuesday for two top prospects, three minor league pitchers and a catcher who has the same name as a kid I was in a fantasy league with last year.

You know what that means. Florida Marlins, 2009 World Series Champions!!

And here my beloved New York Mets sit, with no chips to push to the center of the table, no bluff to use to steal a pot and no third poker metaphor to finish this sentence.

Omar Minaya is in Nashville right now walking around like the Chris Rock character "Cheap Pete" from In Living Color.
"How much for Johan Santana?... Good Lord that's a lot of money! How about Carlos Gomez and a groundskeeper?"
"How much for Danny Haren?... Tell ya what, I'll give you Philip Humber and a bus pass."
"How much for Erik Bedard?... OK, OK, let me see here. I got Mike Pelfrey and a bag of baseballs."
"How much for Livan Hernandez?" (Blogger's note: Please, no. Omar, no. NO)

I guess it would have been too difficult to just hold onto Scott Kazmir.

What's Victor Zambrano doing nowadays? Oh, you think he's a middle reliever for the New Haven County Cutters? Oh, the New Haven County Cutters went out of business? Well then he must be unemployed.

And the worse part of this whole thing is when I turned on Mets Hot Stove on SNY this past Monday, Jim Duquette was an in-studio host.

What?

Jim Duquette traded Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano and just 3 years later he's hosting a show on the Mets network? For those of you who aren't Mets fans — and judging by the polls conducted in Connecticut every year, 96% of you aren't — this is Eric Mangini hosting a Patriots' postgame show. This is "Hello, I'm Michael Kay alongside Pedro Martinez". This is the Celtics front office playing beer pong with the balls from the 1997 lottery.

Seeing Jim Duquette in the SNY studios analyzing the current GM — the one who succeeded him because he's a moron — is just an indication of what type of organization the Mets really are. They're second rate. If there was another baseball team in New York, they might be third rate. And I'm a die-hard Mets fan. When you get slapped in the face, it stings.

But that's the difference between the Mets and the Yanks. You won't turn on YES and find Kevin Brown and Carl Pavano analyzing Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes. Just switch over to SNY. I'm sure Jim Duquette thinks landing Ryan Church and Brian Schneider for Lastings Milledge was a steal.